Monday, April 28, 2008

I want to celebrate two important (for me) birthdays today: The 425DXNews webiste celebrates today 13 years of presence on Internet.Derek Cox (G3KHZ) celebrates his birthday today.I spent lot of years behind the 425DXN site and I think most of the success becomes from my devotion to it. Derek is not only a partner for my last DXpeditions but a true friend. I like to remember the 28th of April as an important date in my HAM activity.Happy Birthday DerekHappy Birthday 425DXN

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

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International Marconi Day 2008, our 21st, will take place from 0000 to 2359 UTC on Saturday 26th April 2008, celebrating the birth of Guglielmo Marconi. As in previous years the event will run for a full 24 hours on HF only, and all modes of radio communication are actively encouraged. Please note that VHF contacts will not count towards the award for IMD 2008.

There will be the usual number of high profile authorised Award Stations representing former Marconi operating locations for you all to work/log to enable the special Awards to be claimed from the Cornish Radio Amateur Club. The Certificates are of a very high quality and are well worth obtaining to display on the wall of any Shack. More details here.

Radio Free Asia is proud to announce the release of its 21st QSL card honoring German physicist and radio pioneer, Heinrich Rudolph Hertz (1857 - 1894). Hertz was the first to broadcast and receive radio waves. He demonstrated the existence of electromagnetic waves by building equipment that not only produced radio waves, but also detected them. His experiments with electromagnetic waves led to the development of the wireless telegraph and the radio. His name is also used for radio and electrical frequencies; hertz (Hz). The QSL card below will be issued for all valid RFA reception reports from April 1 – June 30, 2008. This is the second in our series of QSL cards honoring radio pioneers. Future QSL cards will include other radio pioneers like Nikola Tesla, Reginald Fessenden, and others. Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a private, nonprofit corporation that broadcasts news and information to listeners in Asian countries where full, accurate, and timely news reports are unavailable. Created by Congress in 1994 and incorporated in 1996, RFA currently broadcasts in Burmese, Cantonese, Khmer, Korean to North Korea, Lao, Mandarin, the Wu dialect, Vietnamese, Tibetan (Uke, Amdo, and Kham), and Uyghur. RFA strives for accuracy, balance, and fairness in its editorial content. As a ‘surrogate’ broadcaster, RFA provides news and commentary specific to each of its target countries, acting as the free press these countries lack. RFA broadcasts only in local languages and dialects, and most of its broadcasts comprise news of specific local interest. More information about Radio Free Asia, including our current broadcast frequency schedule, is available at www.rfa.org.RFA encourages listeners to submit reception reports. Reception reports are valuable to RFA as they help us evaluate the signal strength and quality of our transmissions. RFA confirms all accurate reception reports by mailing a QSL card to the listener.RFA welcomes all reception report submissions at www.techweb.rfa.org (follow the QSL REPORTS link) not only from DX’ers, but also from its general listening audience. Reception reports are also accepted by email at qsl@rfa.org, and for anyone without Internet access, reception reports can be mailed to:

The team is looking for helps, contributions and SPONSORS for cover the big costs of this Dx-pedition. Please visit the above Web page for details. We wish that you enjoy the DXpedition as much we do! 73s

(Apr 16, 2008) -- ARRL DXCC Manager Bill Moore, NC1L, announced today that the following operations have been approved for DXCC credit: the 2007 operation to Uganda, 5X1NH; the 2007 operation to Western Sahara, S05A; the 2008 operation to Burundi, 9UXEV; the 2008 operation to Syria, YK9G, and the ongoing operation of HZ1PS in Saudi Arabia. If you have cards rejected or have any questions concerning these operations, please e-mail the DXCC Desk. Link to the source.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's reunification with China, Radio Amateurs in Hong Kong are granted by OFTA permission to use the "VR10", from 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2008.

HARTS is issuing a Special Award to celebrate the 10th anniversary of HKSAR, HKSAR 10th Anniversary Award. The award is available to all licensed amateurs. 10 QSO with VR10 stations on 3 different Amateur Radio frequency bands. Contacts made between the period of 2007-6-30 16:00 (UTC) to 2008-6-30 16:00 (UTC) are eligible. QSL cards are NOT required. Send certified list of eligible contacts from LOG BOOK only (Note: applicants must enclose either photo copy of the certified LOG BOOK, which must be signed by two or more licensed amateurs, OR photo copy of the QSL cards). Awards may be endorsed for any mode or band. Cost is US$10 or HK$100 or RMB100. Application to HARTS Awards Manager.

Dear Friends,Celebrating the 4th International Polar Year 2007/2008, Portugal has been represented by the Official Special Event Amateur Radio Station CQ4IPY .

CQ4IPY ON-THE-AIR

* 1st Period April 25th until May 1st * 2nd Period June 10th until June 16th * 3rd Period September 1st until September 7th * Last Period November 1st until November 7th

CQ4IPY , during the 4th International Polar Year in SSB/CW/PSK31/RTTY/SSTV on 80-10 Meters Band QSL CARD ok via the Bureau (via CT1BWW)

The importance of this Celebration gave to all participants the chance to get a Special CERTIFICATE . The CQ4IPY Certificate it's for all Amateur Radio Operators and SWL who can demonstrate the interest on this celebration and justify the dedication working at least the CQ4IPY on 3 (three) diferent Bands or 2 (two) different modes. To get the Award just send the log with fee to cover Mail Expenses to the following address:

Imagery Dates - You will now be able to easily see the dates when imagery was taken for most imagery (but, not all - simply because the date data isn't always available from the many imagery providers delivering to Google).

New navigational controls -New features enabling better ways to look around at 3D buildings and 3D terrain using new navigation gadgets and your mouse or keyboard.

More 3D buildings, faster loading- Faster loading 3D building models, and faster rendering as well. New photo-textured cities (it will be interesting to find out how they were made, where they came from, and how many new cities are included).

Day/Night Lighting - Real-time sunlight lighting option. Time slider control of the sun position. Expect a more realistic looking view of Earth from space. This has been done before by others, but now will be available built-in and supported by Google.

Flash Support for Mac- That's right, you'll now be able to play YouTube videos and put other flash apps inside Google Earth placemarks just like on Windows. There may be a couple of caveats though from reports I have. More on this later.

Switching to Sky Faster - Switching between Sky and Earth modes will be much faster.

After last year operations as OH1ØTA, another european island will be on Air during late April 2008. IE9N will be active on HF/50MHz all modes - Operators will focus their attention to low and warc bands. Also a 50MHz beacon will be on air as IE9N/B (click updates section for more details). Ops: IZØEHO Andrea - IZØFKE Vincenzo - IZØFMA Alberto - IZØGKX Claudio .Details on http://www.ie9n.com/

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

I was performing some statistics on the 9M8PSB logs (OC-165, Pulau Satang Besar, 2004) for which I'm the manager and I noticed that on the total of 2895 different calls we had QSO with (4477 QSOs) only 1665 OM requested the QSL card. And 126 of them are in the 2008 IOTA list. Don't you need OC-165 ? Did you already have the reference confirmed by the previous activity by 9M8QQ in March 1999 ? What a strange rate ? May be several cards are still travelling in the bureau so I expect to receive other QSLs for the next 10 years ! If you want direct cards my address in on QRZ.COM

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

From 425DXNews bulletin #882 (29 March 2008): "425 TOOLBAR ---&gt; The 425 Toolbar [425DXN 794] has already been installed by over 3800 users (we are now close to 4000!) and the number of operations performed is over 920,000 since the release in July 2006. Further information and free download at http://425.ourtoolbar.com/ (Firefox and I.E., no personal information is required)"

From april the 16. to may 17. i will be back in Costa Rica. I try to activate IOTA islands in the NA-191 and NA-117 group. Main activity will be on weekends. I prefer the 17 meter band. QSL information on this side after finish the operation. Please, do not use any other qsl way! DK6AO

Friday, April 04, 2008

The Spirit of Knoxville V (SNOX V) balloon will launch Sunday 6th April at 0000 UTC, from Knoxville, TN in an attempt to cross the Atlantic. It will carry Amateur Radio beacons in the 10 MHz (10.146 LSB RTTY & CW Telemetry) and 144 MHz bands (where?). Please visit http://spiritofknoxville.com for more information and live flight tracking. This will be the last SNOX flight this season, the trans-atlantic jet stream wind is slowing as warm weather arrives. Thank you, The Spirit of Knoxville Crew

G3KHZ, G4EDG, CT1AGF & W5GAI announce an IOTA dxpedition to Witu Islands, OC-181 and Ninigo group OC-041. They are looking for 2 more operators. Please contact G3KHZ if interested. The group will be chartering the same boat that was used last October on the Nukumanu, Taku’u and Kilinailau dxpedition. The boat also caters for scuba divers. For anyone starting from the UK, departure will be from London on 15 Oct and returning to London on 7 Nov. The boat will leave Rabaul/Kokopo, New Britain on 18 Oct and finish at Manus Island on 4 Nov.

With less than 2% of Island on the Air participants claiming to have contacted The Isle of Rockall EU189, now a dream opportunity has arisen to join Island Man: aka Andy Strangeway on a once in a lifetime trip to the edge of the world. Previously activated in 2005 for a few hours only, it’s easy to see why this most wanted island on the air attracts interest from every part of the globe.

On 22 June, 2008 Andy will attempt to travel out to Rockall with a professional team of yachtsmen and rock climbing instructors. It’s thought generally the weather and sea conditions are kindest then. There will be room onboard for up to eight radio amateurs who may be interested in going to Rockall and activating the extremely rare EU189. Having already spoken to Andy on the telephone, I can confirm he is mighty keen to go with a group of radio hams and try land on the sacred islet.

If you are serious in joining Andy, drop an email to him at info@island-man.co.uk or alternatively leave a comment here whereby it can be forwarded to Andy.

Furthermore, Andy along with the World’s Most Travelled person (Charles Veley) will also attempt to land on Rockall during the week commencing May 12. He informs that one or two places are still available on this earlier trip to Rockall. Again, if interested, contact Andy or leave a reply here - the May visit to Rockall could be an ideal opportunity to do a site survey for the planned June 2008 (amateur radio) visit.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

In follow up to the January 21, 2008 DXCC blog entry regarding St Barthelemy, DXCC has completed processing 2007 applications and St Barthelemy has now been added to the DXCC computer system, and, Logbook of The World.This moves the #1 Honor Roll position to 338 current entities making entry level Honor Roll 329.While DXCC has completed 2007 applications there are a number of application returns still being mailed so it may be another 2-3 weeks before applicants receive their 2007 return.Lastly, Logbook of The World is now accepting certificate requests for St Barthelemy, and once those logs are submitted the matches should occur and applicants can claim DXCC credit.For programmers who use the DXCC entity numbering system, the entity code for St Barthelemy is 516.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

G3KHZ, G4EDG, CT1AGF & W5GAI announce an IOTA dxpedition to Witu Islands, OC-181 and Ninigo group OC-041. They are looking for 2 more operators. Please contact G3KHZ if interested. The group will be chartering the same boat that was used last October on the Nukumanu, Taku’u and Kilinailau dxpedition. The boat also caters for scuba divers. For anyone starting from the UK, departure will be from London on 15 Oct and returning to London on 7 Nov. The boat will leave Rabaul/Kokopo, New Britain on 18 Oct and finish at Manus Island on 4 Nov.